Above the Surface: The 3 Must-Do’s

1) Make sure your stance isn’t overly wide. It will inhibit your ability to twist.  Your stance should be approximately 2/3 the distance of your Warrior 1 stance.

2) Keep your hips completely squared while you rotate open your rib cage.

3) Continuously squeeze your inner thighs together like a pair of scissors.  This will make the balance infinitely easier.

Under the Surface

Twisting Triangle presents a couple of hurdles for you to overcome.  As is the case in all twists, learning to rotate from your core is a big one.  Learning to rotate from your core is what allows you to keep your hips square while simultaneously opening up your rib cage.

Front Foot

Like all standing poses, the grounding through the front foot is crucial to the entire pose.  In Twisting Triangle, its possible for too much of your body weight to end up on the outer foot.  Think about, especially as you rotate yourself, to continuously press your big toe down into the ground for added stability in the pose.  Doing this will prevent you from falling off to the side.

Back Foot

This one is debatable.  But, for the most part, you want your back foot to be turned in approximately 45 degrees.  This will give you the most solid grounding sensation through the back leg.

Some students prefer to turn the foot out a little more.  Play with it for yourself and see how it effects the pose. In general, the more you open up the foot the more difficult it is to twist.

You should be approximately lined up heel-to-heel in this pose.

Front Leg

The front leg is straight, but not over straight. A micro bend is safe.

Engage as much of the leg as you can.  Do your best to actively lift your quadriceps up toward your hip socket to support all the leg bones.

At the same time try and draw your inner backward toward your back leg.

Back Leg

Once you have a comfortable position for the back foot, work on the muscles in the back leg.

The primary thing you want to focus on here is pulling your back inner thigh forward toward your front leg.

Doing this and pulling your front inner thigh back at the same time will create a scissoring action between the two legs.  This will make your base more solid as you twist your torso open.

Hips

Do your best to keep yours hips completely square in this pose. 

If this pose is new for you, really focus on your hips.  One thing that might start to happen is your right hip will start to slide way off to the right as you try to open up your top shoulder.

Torso

Lots of stuff going on in the torso in Twisting Triangle.

First you want get the hang of the twisting part and this comes from your core.

In general, twisting is the combination of extending and rotating.  You can really work your breath to your advantage.  Every time you inhale, extend your whole torso forward.  Every time you exhale (when your belly button is pulled back to the spine) rotate yourself open.  The key is to make sure you don’t feel your hips moving with the torso.

Shoulders & Arms

In Twisting Triangle, try and stack your arms the best you can.  It’s more difficult in this pose compared to Triangle Pose or Half Moon simply because a large part of determining whether or not you can stack the arms is how much you can rotate in your torso.

You can place your right hand down either inside or outside of your right foot and you do not have to get it flat on the floor.  Eventually, when you really get the pose down you’ll be able to place the outside the foot with your finger tips and toe tips right in line.

Also, don’t be afraid to use a block to prop the hand up.  One thing to watch out for is if you are putting your hand inside your foot it will cause your right hip to stick out more than normal.  Be aware of this and draw it in the best you can.

Another thing to watch out for when trying to stack the arms in the shoulder blades.  Specifically in the top arm.  Sometimes when a student can’t fully rotate open, they tend to draw the top arm up by squeezing the shoulder blade similar to a backbend.  Avoid doing that it.  It puts undue stress on the shoulder joint.

Neck & Head

Take your gaze in any direction that is comfortable.  Protect your neck, make it as long as possible.

Master the Feel: Homework Questions

1) How does changing the angle of the back foot effect the pose?  Does it make it easier or harder to rotate?

2) What happens if you try to do Twisting Triangle with a really wide stance?

3) How does moving the right hand inside the front foot effect your balance?  What else shifts?